I am relieved to finally find a book that deals with Black Swan Events in a new way. Ayache brings a reverse-probabilistic perspective: instead of considering that a price is the result of probabilistically derived expectation, he reverses the issues and investigates these artificial constructs as "probabilities" and "expectations" as secondary, derived, fictitious concepts that we bring about to explain prices, decisions, and other things.

This, of course, is just the beginning, so one has to be understanding about the speculative aspect of the effort --so view this as a gutsy look at the "end of probability" and how we will need to envision the world once we get rid of this artificial, antiquated tool. I am also glad to see that those of us trained in the trading of options can have views original enough to influence the philosophy of probability and the philosophical understanding of contingency.

The funny thing is that the books that had the biggest impact (like my Verne’s favourite) are not necessarily the best books, objectively speaking. They were good enough to present a new worldview that I was not aware of. Timing probably was more important than their intrinsic literary qualities. They “managed” to fall into my lap at the right time. Such a book was Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, a mediocre book by my standards of today, but deeply inspirational by the ones from yesterday.

This book is amazing—it didn't change my mind, so much as it has changed the way I think. It helps to understand the difference between the way you make quick decisions, versus considered decisions—it takes different mechanisms in the brain. Understanding which you're doing at any given time can have a profound impact on what you ultimately decide.

It's difficult to pinpoint an exact moment because all of the books helped me in a way. Probably a recent example was the book The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos. He is talking about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. After reading this book I was, damn that's the future and I need to start investing in this technology. Didn't stop ever since.

[From the book "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon"]

“The scholar argues that people are wired to see patterns in chaos while remaining blind to unpredictable events, with massive consequences. Experimentation and empiricism trumps the easy and obvious narrative,” Stone writes.

Q: What is one must-read book for business leaders?

A: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Business and Life by Charles Duhigg.

This book was recommended by Daymond John on page 234 of "Tools of Titans".